This is the post-print version (author’s manuscript as accepted for publishing after peer review but prior to

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Sarkis, J. (2020), "Supply chain sustainability: learning from the COVID-19 pandemic", International
Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 41 No. 1, pp. 63-73.
https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-08-2020-0568
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Supply Chain Sustainability: Learning from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Joseph Sarkis

Foisie Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA and
Hanken School of Economics, Humlog Institute, Helsinki, Finland

Structured Abstract

Purpose: This pathway paper provides research guidance for investigating environmental
sustainability in supply chains in a Post-COVID-19 environment.

Design/methodology/approach: Published literature, personal research experience, insights

from virtual open forums, and practitioner interviews inform this study.

Findings: COVID-19 pandemic events and responses are unprecedented to modern operations
and supply chains. Scholars and practitioners seek to make sense of how this event will make us
revisit basic scholarly notions and ontology. Sustainability implications exist. Short-term
environmental sustainability gains occur while long-term effects are still uncertain and require
research. Sustainability and resilience are complements and jointly require investigation.

Research limitations/implications: The COVID-19 crisis is emerging and evolving. It is not clear
whether short-term changes and responses will result in a new ‘normal’. Adjustment to current
theories or new theoretical developments may be necessary. This pathway article only starts
the conversation—many additional sustainability issues do arise and cannot be covered in one
essay.

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Practical implications: Organizations have faced a major shock during this crisis. Environmental
sustainability practices can help organizations manage in this and future competitive contexts.

Social implications: Broad economic, operational, social, and ecological-environmental

sustainability implications are included—although the focus is on environmental sustainability.
Emergent organizational, consumer, policy, and supply chain behaviors are identified.

Originality/value: We take an operations and supply chain environmental sustainability

perspective to COVID-19 pandemic implications; with sustainable representing the triple-
bottom-line dimensions of environmental, social, and economic sustainability; with a special
focus on environmental sustainability. Substantial open questions for investigation are
identified. This paper sets the stage for research requiring rethinking of some previous tenets
and ontologies.

Introduction

Sustainable operations and supply chains are well-established topics in the operations
management discipline. Sustainable supply chain research 1 focuses on a triple bottom-line
perspective, with economics and environment playing predominant roles (Hallinger, 2020); and
social concerns receiving increasing attention (Nath and Agrawal, 2020; Walker et al., 2014).

The COVID-19 pandemic provides additional evidence that the three sustainability
dimensions are inextricably linked. Economic reverberations have occurred with supply chain
stoppages across industries—some non-essential industries have yet to fully recover. The
natural environment is the pandemic source—the virus likely emanated from wet markets
selling animal products. New social sustainability norms emerge as people live differently—for
example social distancing has resulted in work from home and fewer physical meetings.
Although social and economic sustainability issues appear in our discussion, the major focus of

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We will integrate sustainable operations and supply chain management into sustainable supply chains and
sustainable supply chain management. With sustainable operations and sustainable operations management
included as part of sustainable supply chains. Unless explicitly mentioned sustainability is primarily focused on
environmental sustainability concerns.

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sustainability discussion in this pathways article focuses on environmental-ecological
sustainability or greening concerns.

The objective of this pathway article is to provide insights for sustainable supply chain
research and relationships resulting from the COVID-19 crisis. We identify potential research
opportunities for future International Journal of Operations & Production Management (IJOPM)
scholarship based on a number of phenomenological observations. These observations derive
from exploratory evidence based on industry practice, expert opinion, and academic sources.
Our aim is to identify the COVID-19 shocks that face the supply chain and especially the
sustainability of supply chain management. Another aim is to provide some thoughts on
COVID-19 crisis remnants and what the aftermath means mean to supply chain sustainability.
We consider this evaluation from technological and social innovation perspectives. Another aim
is to identify various research opportunities that appear in the penultimate section of this
pathway article.

COVID-19 Shocks

The social, political, and economic upheaval from COVID-19 is palpable. Global virus
containment responses include closing non-essential businesses, social distancing, smaller
public gatherings, indefinitely postponing sporting events, cancelling conferences, and requiring
populations to shelter in place.

Operations and supply chain fragility is at the forefront of popular discourse. The great
toilet paper drought, cotton swabs for testing deficiencies, and personal protection equipment
(PPE) privation—became daily news items (Paul and Chowdhury, 2020; Rowan and Laffey,
2020). Global supply chains faltered in delivering needed goods as their brittleness and lack of
operational agility became conspicuous. We heard stories about wheat flour and other
commodities being held at national borders to prevent the spread of the virus; disrupting the
essential food supply chain.

Globalization, offshoring, and lean-based efficiency came under increasing scrutiny.

Historically, the research has been replete with efforts to help organizations gain competitive
advantage under paradigms of comparative advantage—finding locations with advantages in

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costs and resources (Schleper et al., 2019). Leanness and efficiency—at least in the short-
term—were met with animosity, mistrust and misgivings.

The COVID-19 crisis shocked supply chains. We observed demand and supply ripples;
chaos, and resonance effects propagated across global networks (Guan et al., 2020). How many
traditional supply chain strategies and policies will survive the COVID-19 outbreak after life
returns to normal?

What do these events and responses mean in transitions to sustainable and resilient
supply chains? What do they mean to environmentally sustainable supply chains, social
innovation, and technological relationships as they relate to the current COVID-19 pandemic
and the various supply chain responses?

There are unprecedented opportunities for this transition to a sustainable post-COVID-

19 environment. The author was involved in a number of open forums—naturally held in a
virtual setting—that discussed opportunities and barriers for supply chain sustainability (Ellram
et al., 2020; Sarkis et al., 2020c). Hundreds of people from throughout the world participated in
these open forums.

Methodologically, the observations and perspectives presented in this pathways paper

are based on information from these forums and summary reports. Interviews with supply
chain professionals and experts based on general concerns related to procurement and
operational practices helped to further refine some thoughts. Also, emergent literature, from
practitioners, news sources, and academic sources were used, although academic sources were
based mostly on opinion and exploratory research.

Based on these sources, we present some summary thoughts on what we can expect
and the role that our learnings from COVID-19 may play in supply chain sustainability diffusion.
We are at a crossroads—will the pandemic lessons persist over the long run and what does this
all mean for scholarship?

Sustainability and Resilience in Supply Chains

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Whilst this crisis provides sustainability opportunities; it could also result in disappointment.
From this crisis we can presage a transition to further supply chain sustainability; although
uncertainties and concerns remain. Sustainability strategy and practices contribute to supply
chain resilience, for example by making sure ecosystem services are maintained, encouraging
more sustainable ‘buy local’ actions, and building community trust. Risk reduction and crisis
responses are reasons that the crisis represents a transformational opportunity by using
sustainability to reduce risk and build resilience.

Sustainability has been viewed through multiple lenses. The two most popular views
are John Elkington’s triple-bottom-line—profits, people, planet and the multi-generational
philosophy born of the Brundtland Report—meeting the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

The research in sustainable supply chains—especially the greening focus—has found a

permanent foothold in the supply chain discipline. Our discipline should be proud that our
community leads corporate and business sustainability research (Hallinger, 2020). We have an
opportunity to maintain this legacy.

It is important for us to critically investigate the pressures, roles, and outcomes of

sustainable supply chains. Although sustainability progress is being made from an
environmental and social perspective, it is slow, sporadic, myopic and can easily fall into
unsustainable practices.

Often, organizations will take the road of least resistance focusing on win-win
opportunities in meeting sustainability challenges; sustainability measures that do not result in
significant short-term economic results are ignored or discouraged. Strong sustainability is
required for lasting improvements (Nikolaou, et al., 2019).

Given the pandemic, environmental sustainability efforts may face the crisis rebound
effect—where society’s recovery activities will exclusively focus on economic and social
sustainability. Previous crises as in this crisis slowed economic growth resulting in some
environmental improvements such as decreases in greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the
economic rebound eventually involved unapologetically greater pollutant emissions.

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 Jobs and economic concerns will be paramount in a recovery –neglecting or removing
any semblance for environmental concerns. An economic growth policy has already been
proposed by various governments including rolling back or removal of some environmental
regulations. This pattern is worrisome to social and planetary sustainability. The post COVID-
19 rebound may involve worse environmental outcomes. The decrease in emissions due to
slower economic activity from the 2008 recession was just a ‘blip’ in long run industrial
emissions (Hanna et al., 2020); an overshoot occurred with lessened ecological concern.

COVID-19 is not an aberration—a black swan. We have encountered similar issues

previously. Criticism of fragile cost-efficient supply chains has occurred from previous
disruptions including the 2003 SARS crisis and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (Lee and
Preston, 2012).

Industry has been responding. One pharmaceutical company we spoke with has been
contracting with fourth party logistics (4PLs) to find multiple available logistics options instead
of a single source logistics provider. This effort builds supply chain agility and resilience, but
such selection procedures can also be used to improve sustainability by identifying and
selecting logistics providers with improved emissions. That case company has a sustainability
strategic policy, these initiatives are encouraged long-run supplier goals.

Some companies, such as New Balance Shoes (New Balance, 2020) and General Motors
(Davies, 2020) voluntarily pivoted to provide procurement and manufacturing capacity for PPE
and ventilators, respectively. This requires building agility into their manufacturing processes—
but may contribute to building additional capabilities to offer byproduct manufacture from
excess material and wastes—a sustainable supply chain practice.

COVID-19 will open investigatory avenues for sustainable supply chain practices.
Whether all supply chains will encounter pressures to maintain or dissolve environmental
sustainability efforts will require careful investigation, analysis and orientation. The choice will
be important to supply chain sustainability research for decades. We now provide some
thoughts and insights, including trends and hotspots for research where future investigation is
needed.

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What will happen to sustainability in supply chains – Post-COVID-19?

Broad socio-political forces have always played a role in supply chain operations;
whether they are from tariffs on goods, new norms related to safety practices, or regulations
on technological practices (Handfield, et al., 2020). Similarly, there will be post-COVID-19
transformation of supply chain practices; but will these transformations stick? Technological
and social innovations are important to supply chain sustainability transition.

Technological innovations and implications

Manufacturing technology is trending towards automation and data exchange systems as in

Industry 4.0. Manufacturers using Industry 4.0 technologies—cyber-physical systems (CPS),
Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and cognitive computing that can complement human
decisions with technologies that can decentralize decision-making. These technologies may
take on important long-term roles in response to COVID-19 activities (Kumar, et al., 2020a).

A likely major change is data-driven awareness-based collective action– Scharmer

(2020). This action means addressing situations collaboratively, and then adjusting behavior in
response to the COVID-19 crisis. As systems begin to fail, especially market and governmental
regulatory systems, organizations need behavior adjustment. Similar practices can benefit
sustainability.

Organizations and their supply chains require more and timely data during and after the
crisis, they will internalize decision making, develop new initiatives and programs to react. This
issue became evident in the financial crisis of 2008, as organizations tended to delay or discard
some of their short-term and tactical plans to address the immediate crisis (DesJardine et al.,
2019). This organizational capacity can enhance sustainability thinking—environmental and
social crises will occur but with uncertain timing and levels. Having the necessary data driven
systems – such as big data – can help organizations to respond quickly to crises, especially
environmental and social crises.

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 Collaborative technologies such as blockchain technology allow for sharing of
information transparently, reasonably quickly, accurately, and widely. Integrating these systems
with IoT and AI can alter how supply chain managers make decisions and subsequently operate
(Saberi et al., 2019; van Hoek, 2019). Knowing the supply chain capabilities and capacities is a
critical for building resilience. Effectively identifying supply chain environmental and social
vulnerabilities can be completed using blockchain transparency and traceability, paired with big
data predictive analytics tools— helping to build needed capabilities and capacities.

This crisis provides evidence that localized systems are more likely to be robust and
resilient than global supply chains (Nandi, et al., 2021; Handfield et al., 2020). Localization is
also important to environmental supply chain sustainability (Holmstrom and Gutowski, 2017).
Local production can mean rapid response to local needs, but with low energy and resources
consumption. For example, in the COVID-19 pandemic many ‘hot-spots’ emerged. Ensuring
critical equipment and materials through more agile production and rapid delivery logistics to
hot spots can equate to saving more lives or slowing the spread of positive cases—a social
sustainability concern. Flexible manufacturing system technologies such as additive
manufacturing and robotics can localize production capabilities.

Local additive manufacturing of parts for ventilators or masks were important solutions.
In northern Italy a hospital required replacement valves for its ventilators but could not locate
any through its local supply chain. A startup—Issinova—heard of the need and brought a 3D
printer to the hospital, reverse engineered the valve and printed replacement parts within the
day. This small example was repeated in multiple locations throughout the world. Smart
factories with distributed information, additive manufacturing and integrated industry 4.0
technology is one solution for building supply chain resilience and robustness through
localization (Holmstrom and Gutowski, 2017).

Localized production capability can support sustainable supply chains by producing only
what is needed. Less waste, less transportation, and less need for inventory storage due to
shorter supply chains; each has sustainable supply chain implications.

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 There are sustainability concerns with some recommended solutions to building
resilience in supply chains. Agility in supply networks will likely mean building redundant
capacity and capabilities. Redundancy results in wasted resources and energy.

Social distancing, remote work, and reduced business travel during the COVID-19 crisis
offer sustainable supply chain lessons. Reduced employee commuting and business travel
contribute to reduced organizational carbon footprints. Virtual meetings and virtual reality
acceptance is likely to increase and become the norm (Sarkis, et al., 2020a). In an interview
with a machine parts distributing company, they informed us that they will likely require fewer
physical supplier location visits due to greater distance communication acceptance.

Unintended negative environmental sustainability concerns may occur. Working from

home may not be as sustainable as initially thought. For example, UK researchers have found
work from home environmental impact was higher in the winter due to heating individual
worker homes versus centralized office buildings (Turits, 2020). Thus, research on the overall
life cycle environmental impact of operational behavioral changes will be needed.

COVID social distancing lessons can provide lessons for future health and safety
operational concerns; for example, when working with hazardous materials. Virtual reality and
linked CPS technologies that can help manage operations at a distance. These practices reduce
travel to and from locations, resulting in reduced energy resource usage and emissions.

A burst of demand for IoT and e-commerce consumer goods and groceries occurred
during the crisis (Wang et al., 2020). Shelter in place and social distancing mandates forced
consumers to turn to on-line sources of goods and services. This behavior had been increasing
incrementally over the past two decades – it is likely to become an even more dominant form
of consumerism. This event required farmers and local retail outlets to pivot to e-commerce
delivery. Shopify, a Canadian e-commerce platform, stepped in to address this need and
provided cloud and supply chains services to these local companies resulting in a shortening of
supply chains (Guillen, 2020).

The crisis also identified big data and analytics opportunities. These opportunities can
support sustainable supply chains (Hazen, et al., 2016; Brinch, 2018). An example is

9
management of food waste in an on-line grocery situation or food sharing across peer-to-peer
e-commerce venues. In our investigation of an on-line setting, we were offered data from
before and during the crisis. This data is currently being evaluated with data analytics tools to
investigate supply chain and consumer responses. Food waste, especially for fresh foods, was a
major issue we identified due to the fluctuations and shifts in demand with bullwhip-like
characteristics.

Social innovations and implications

Social innovations relate to the technology transformation landscape. Two related social
innovations – the circular economy and the sharing economy – can positively impact supply
chain sustainability and resilience. Negative outcomes may also occur.

The COVID-19 crisis showed the risk of global supply chains focusing solely on efficiency.
As previously observed localization and redundancy in sourcing can reduce risk. Localization is
particularly important for isolated communities. One extreme isolation example is Pacific Island
territories that are dependent on global supply chains for food security. In response to COVID-
19 disruptions island nation communities have developed local food markets, sharing activities,
and bartering. This localization transformation means less food waste and emissions due to
cooperatives (Farrell, et al., 2020).

Supply chain localization through industrial symbiosis, waste exchanges, and utilization
of local byproducts, are supply chain resilience enablers and circular economy practices (Smart,
et al., 2017). Questions do arise. Intended for resources conservation, do circular economy
principles also help build supply chain resilience and robustness? Can circular economy
practices be the solution for joint supply chain sustainability, efficiency, and resilience?

Sharing economy issues also arose during the crisis (Hossain, 2020). For example, due to
slow downs and shutdowns, inactive service or delivery vehicles were mobilized to deliver
essential goods. One supply chain executive mentioned to us the ability to deliver
internationally using passenger and military aircraft due to excess capacity and availability
during the crisis. This acceptance and application due to crisis needs may be adopted as a
standard crowdsourcing practice for logistics and delivery (Li, et al., 2020).

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 COVID-19 consumer and individual behavioral responses may influence the prospects of
both sharing and circular economy social innovations—the consumer behavioral move to on-
line and e-commerce sales is one example (Wang, et al., 2020). A major behavioral concern is
whether negative reuse and recycling perceptions will emerge. Reuse and recycling – core
circular economy practices – imply that a material or good has been used previously. Post-
COVID a fraction of the population will perceive recycled goods and materials as contaminated
and unsafe. Even before the crisis there existed an aversion to recycled products due to quality
deficiency perceptions – this perception may expand to recycled goods being less sanitary.
Additionally, sharing services such as car-sharing may be under greater scrutiny given contagion
worries and unsafe close conditions, during the crisis, which can carry-on to the post-COVID
environment (Kobis et al., 2020).

Research Opportunities

Several research opportunities for the overall supply chain management community –
and sustainable supply chains – exist during and after this pandemic. It is an opportunity for
natural experiments, empirical investigation, field, and case studies.

First, some broader questions—the COVID-19 pandemic is a natural disaster not

necessarily man-made. How does a natural disaster differ from a man-made disaster in terms of
acceptance of supply chain disruption and resulting supply chain environmental sustainability
issues? Will supply chain partners and consumers be more forgiving in crisis responses when
environmental damage occurs for the benefit of society and the economy?

After the event there will be concerns about recovery and returning to normalcy. From
a supply chain sustainability perspective, there is concern on whether regulatory policy –
especially environmental policies – will be rolled back and whether this regulatory roll back
supports more efficient supply chain recovery (Kecinksi, et al., 2020).

Post-COVID emissions outcomes and shifts in sustainable supply chain policies, are
intriguing research directions. Will organizations along the supply chain – including
governmental or quasi-governmental agency regulators – reduce oversight, auditing and
requirements for sourcing materials, especially with respect to environmental regulations?

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 Will a crisis-related shift in global politics cause changes in access to materials for green
economy products? For example, the U.S. is blaming China for the pandemic and using it to
further instill tariffs. Will these tariffs further disrupt clean-energy supply chain and distribution
networks dependent on materials and rare metals from China (Temple, 2020)?

How does this pandemic relate to other crises? A comparative analysis may be possible.
How do these disruptive global events differ from smaller disruption events? Can the lessons
learned at the broader pandemic crisis level be applied to less pervasive disasters and
disruptions? Do environmental concerns along the supply chain differ? For example, a localized
event may require environmental protections for local residents; a broader event with
dispersed and long-term environmental concerns – e.g. climate change – may not be as critical
for organizational and supply chain action (Sarkis et al., 2020b).

With newer consumption patterns, does the shift to on-line purchase and deliveries
result in improved or worsened supply chain sustainability outcomes? For example, currently,
packaging for on-line delivery is very inefficient with excess packaging and materials (Wang and
Zhu, 2020). As this type of purchasing becomes the new normal, will innovations in packaging
occur and thus reduce overall waste?

Last-mile type studies can be further investigated. For example, the use of drone
technology for delivery may mean fewer emissions from vehicular deliveries; will these new
technologies become more acceptable and feasible as less human interaction is expected
(Kumar et al., 2020b).

The bullwhip, ripple, and resonance effects are likely to occur in hoarding situations
during a pandemic, especially after shelter in place orders are announced. What happens in this
circumstance (Handfield et al., 2020)? Will the bullwhip effect be more pronounced with
greater waste? Overshoot responses means a surplus of inventory, which could prove costly to
the company and result in wasted resources. Can this waste be mitigated with some of the
localization and social innovation practices? What does it mean for leadership and
organizational policy in managing short-term wastes and long-term sustainability of
organizations? If the ‘clockspeed’ (Fine, 2000) associated with this crisis has not been

12
experienced previously, what does it mean for sustainability management and future broad-
base disruptive events and crises?

The relationships between lean and green supply chains have been investigated (Shou
et al., 2020). Will the shift away from lean, towards agile and robust supply chains also mean a
shift in technology, social innovations, and environmental sustainability of supply chains?

Many potential transformations are likely to occur, how long these changes remain will
likely differ across industries. The relative system shock may determine whether COVID-driven
shifts towards greater supply chain resilience and sustainability will only be short-run
corrections. One supply chain executive—the chief procurement officer of a company
employing 100,000 people worldwide—provided one interesting insight. She stated that
because her company had a strong sustainability focus, that they did not feel the ‘short-run’
COVID-19 crisis will change anything they do. They felt this short-term crisis will subside and
broader sustainability concerns are more critical.

In the emergent literature the issue of whether supply chain sustainablity will be altered
by the COVID-19 crisis is receiving attention (e.g. Sharma et al., 2020). The converse on whether
a sustainability strategy focus will cause organizations to effectively survive post-COVID remains
an important topic for research.

Major potential COVID-19 outcomes related to technological and social innovations and
their relationships, based on previous section observations are summarized at the top of Table
1. Exemplary research concerns and questions from COVID-19 and supply chain sustainability
relationships are summarized in the bottom of Table 1.

Table 1 about here

Conclusion

This is an unprecedented time. The world has rapidly reacted to a major crisis. Our
previous institutions and worldviews have changed. This pandemic – with its remaining
uncertainties – and responses will be topics of discussion for the foreseeable future. The crisis

13
and recovery period provides us with opportunities to observe and study how institutional
changes can result in strategic and operational supply chain transformations.

Although the limitations and fragility of global supply chain resilience occurred early in
the pandemic, they also highlighted potential transition opportunities and evolution towards
sustainability. For example, the COVID-19 crisis provides lessons for climate shock events (Sarkis
et al., 2020b).

We have outlined some general issues on how these major social and technological
transformations from the COVID-19 pandemic can change our understanding of supply chains
and supply chain sustainability.

It is not clear if after the panic and the crisis we will return to our old ways. After this
black swan event subsides, will it be the accountants and financiers who decide how our supply
chains operate; will the sustainability flame dim?

We need to carefully examine and study our world; what we learn now and what we
implement later can have beneficial or detrimental results for decades and generations. Only
looking inwardly to our discipline will be short-sighted; we need to join forces with natural
scientists, social scientists, industry, government and civil society to jointly address these issues.
This crisis requires transdisciplinary interactions.

Overall, as operations and supply chain researchers we should not shirk our duties in
contributing to recovery and a better – sustainable – world.

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Post-COVID Developments Lessons highlights
Technological Innovations Long-term (strategic) role of Industry 4.0 technologies as an enabler
for crisis management.
Big data is reinforced as a decision planning tool.
Emergent collaborative technologies such a blockchain technology can
help to support sustainability.
Localization through various technologies used in crisis can support
supply chain sustainability.
Building agility through technological innovations may result in wasted
resources burdening supply chain sustainability.
Social distancing and remote work means greater acceptance of
conferencing technology and less travel to supplier locations for
monitoring, negotiations, etc.
On-line sourcing and purchasing of retail and grocery shifts travel and
last mile delivery focus affecting sustainability.
Social Innovations Circular Economy (CE)
- Localization can be supported through CE principles
- Localization can build resilience and be more sustainable
- Which CE practices—industrial symbiosis, waste exchanges,
local byproduct usage—may address resilience and
robustness.

Sharing Economy
- Learnings for sharing excess capacity through crowdsourcing.
- Significant issues related to consumer sharing and
contagion—carryover to post-COVID.

Research Opportunities Exemplary Research Questions

Are natural disasters and crises and their responses in the supply chain
relative to sustainability concerns different than responses to man-
made crises?
Will supply chain and operations environmental sustainability
performance and concerns wane during the crisis and during a
recovery period?
Will the COVID crisis provide greater insights for local or for global
supply chain crises and responses (localized environmental crises
versus global long-term crises)?
What lessons exist for the bullwhip events in a crisis-like situation for
general management and waste in the supply chain pipeline?
What does a change in lean effort perspectives due to COVID mean to
the ‘lean and green’ supply chain outcomes? Are agile supply chains
greener than lean?
Does a broad-based organizational sustainability strategy will likely
mean few changes to operations and supply chain practices and long-
term sustainability outcomes?

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